As Red Line Report's chief scout boarded a plane from Europe back to Montreal after last month's Five Nations tournament in the Czech Republic, it was pretty clear that a shakeup was needed in the upper echelons of our rankings. After some deep pondering over the list on a seven-hour flight, we headed out across Quebec and Ontario to see another round of games involving several viewings of Saint John, Niagara, Kitchener, Ottawa and Drummondville — all teams that are essential to evaluating this year's top-end talent.

By Claus Andersen, Getty Images

Jonathan Huberdeau has passed Sean Couturier as the top draft-eligible prospect out of the Quebec league.

Jonathan Huberdeau has passed Sean Couturier as the top draft-eligible prospect out of the Quebec league.

And by the time we returned from this journey, some pretty dramatic changes had been made to our list. Right off the bat, we'll come out and say a few things:

1. A few guys have simply forced us to get them up higher in the standings: Jonathan Huberdeau, Oscar Klefbom and Rocco Grimaldi.

2. The top eight (possibly nine) guys on the list have separated themselves out from the pack.

3. Ask 10 scouts to put an order to those eight to nine guys and you'll get 10 different answers. There is no clearly delineated order this year.

While the drumbeat has been slowly building for Huberdeau the past three months, he simply has elevated his game to a level we did not expect to see out of him this year. And we can no longer deny what our gut is telling us: He has passed Sean Couturier as the Quebec League's top prospect. Couturier is in his third full year in the Q and far more physically developed than Huberdeau. Yet Huberdeau, in his second Q season, is the more assertive and aggressive player, and we believe he's performing at a higher level right now than Couturier was at this time last year when he won the Quebec League scoring crown.

Grimaldi, meanwhile, was simply the best and most dominant performer in the Czech Republic. And while he's barely tall enough to play handball against the curb, we have no doubt he'll find a way to succeed at the NHL level, just as he has everywhere else. Think of him as a more dynamic Tyler Ennis.

And likely the most surprising name for many of you will be Klefbom. Not even thought of by most scouts in his native Sweden to be in the same class as countrymen Adam Larsson and Jonas Brodin, we find him to be one of the most intriguing prospects in the draft. Big, smooth skating, and powerful with great vision and passing skills. Raw as hell on the defensive side of the game, but we'd take a chance on teaching him about his own end.

Rising

•Jonathan Huberdeau (Saint John): Just continues to take his game to new levels we never thought he would approach so soon. He has now ascended the throne as the Quebec League's top prospect.

By Tom Sorenson

The 5-6 Rocco Grimaldi has had impressive performances internationally.

•Rocco Grimaldi (U.S. NTDP U-18): The size will become a moot point if he continues to dominate at top level competitions, as he did at last month's Five Nations in the Czech Republic.

•Zakhar Arzamastsev (Novokuznetsk): Gets absolutely no viewings as a late 1992 Russian, but he's a very solid two-way defender with some size and crisp puck movement skills.

•Reid Boucher (U.S. NTDP U-18): Everything about him is just average — until he has the puck on his stick from the circles in. Then it's quickly deposited in the back of the net.

Falling

•Victor Rask (Leksand): What is going on with the big center? Once considered a potential Top 5 overall pick, he's not even among the top five Swedes anymore in our view.

•Sean Couturier (Drummondville): He's not playing badly, but he's not quite living up to our expectations, and others have passed him.

•Robbie Russo (U.S. NTDP U-18): We don't like to put guys in this category two consecutive months, but if anyone has earned it, it was Russo with his performance at the Five Nations.

News and notes from around the scouting community

• At Red Line, we've been watching closely the resurgence/rebirth of a pair of goalies that we had in our Top 50 in preseason, only to see both of them fall flat on their respective faces in the season's first half.

Plymouth netminder Matt Mahalak, a long time Red Line Report favorite who struggled mightily over the past year or so, has begun to figure things out at the junior level. Since the New Year, Mahalak looks like the athletic, confident goalie we watched as a youngster. His movements are now fluid and quick rather than stiff and mechanical, and he's challenging shooters again rather than sitting back on the goal line.

In January and February, Mahalak spun a dandy 5-0-0-3 record, with a 2.08 goals-against average and a .942 save percentage, in addition to registering his first OHL shutout with a 36-save effort against the high-flying Oshawa Generals.

And over in the Quebec League, Russian import Andrei Makarov has finally righted the ship in Lewiston after taking on much water and nearly capsizing in the season's first half.

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Makarov struggled horrifically over the first three months and nearly played himself completely out of our rankings as he tried to adjust to the style of play in the Q and life in North America.

But over the past two months, he has quietly fashioned a stretch where he's gone 6-4 with a .920 save percentage and a 2.76 GAA to get his numbers on the season back to respectability.

We believe part of the problem for young Russian netminders, in particular, when they come over (even World Junior gold medalist Igor Bobkov has had a tough time in London this year) is that generally they've never even heard of such a thing as a goaltending coach, and require a ton of technique work just to catch up to their North American brethren, even in cases where their physical tools and athleticism are far superior.

• As an 18 year-old, Milan Lucic led the Vancouver Giants to a Memorial Cup, taking home MVP honors in the process. That accomplishment was impressive in its own right, but Lucic's legacy seems to have had a bigger impact on the WHL than anyone could have anticipated.

Big-bodied forwards in the Dub are no longer being counted on just to drop the gloves. These prospects are starting to develop their offensive skills and being asked to contribute on the score sheet.

And scouts around the circuit are starting to drop the Lucic tag on Medicine Hat forward Kale Kessy. The Hat has the most potent offense in the league with its top five players already combining for 370 points, so Kessy is really not being relied upon to provide much offense. But his offensive skill set and size (6-3, 185 pounds) have some scouts drooling over his potential. He's already a feared fighter, even among the veteran tough guys in the Dub.

Even though his point totals haven't taken off yet, his offensive awareness and puck skills are promising enough to think that, given the opportunity, his scoring stats will take a major jump.

He has a long way to go to actually live up to the Lucic billing, but Red Line is bullish on this big bear.

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